Quarrel of the Nominations

The quarrel of the Nominations is the name given to the long conflict which opposed the Papauté and the Saint Germanic Roman Empire between 1075 and 1122. It draws its name from the nomination of the bishops. After a thankless struggle between the emperors and the popes, it leads to a temporary victory of spiritual over the temporal one.

Origins of the quarrel

With the the Middle Ages, the nomination is an act by which a person puts another in possession of a thing. Of the 11th century, the sovereigns think that the fact of entrusting to a bishop or a priest of the tangible properties enabled them to choose the officiant and to grant the spiritual nominations to him.

Since the Ottoniens, the Empire had total control on the election of the popes and the nomination of the bishops in the Empire. To sit their capacity, the German emperors had reserved for the latter of the kingly capacities. The bishops had the advantage of not having of heir. The emperors could thus give the temporal and spiritual nominations to men faithful to their person and to be able to them. This nomination was symbolized by the handing-over of the ring and the stick by the emperor with the bishop entering in charge.
Against the 11th century, this policy runs up against the Gregorian Réforme which thinks that the problems from which the clergy suffers at that time are due to the seizure of laic on this one. The pope Gregoire VII, elected in 1073 publishes in 1075 a decree prohibiting with laic to choose and invest the bishops. But especially in a famous text, the Dictatus papae, he affirms that he is, by Christ, the only one to have a universal capacity, higher than that of the sovereigns, that he can deposit, and that he is the only Master of the Church. The emperor is not thus any more the co-operator of the pope, but his subordinate. He must carry out his directives. This calls into question the imperial Church and the form of government set up by Ottoniens. The kings see an attack there to be able to them and refuse to publish the Dictatus papae in their States.

The conflict enters the German popes and emperors

The emperor Henri IV has just overcome a rebellion in Saxony.

Papacy succeeded, for a time, to withdraw the national clergies from the capacity of the sovereigns. It reinforces its prestige thus. The pope Calixte II enpress to meet a oecumenical council besides, the first since that of Constantinople into 843. It takes again the provisions of the legal settlement of Worms and again condemns the Simonie, the cohabitation of the clerks, and the seizure of laic on the goods and the incomes of the Church. But the Holy See did not succeed in imposing its dominium mundi , i.e. its claim to dominate the world. By separating the temporal one from spiritual, it allows the progressive laicization of the imperial capacity, capacity which it largely contributes to weaken. Indeed, the compromise is largely a defeat for the Empire. The prelates are not any more the officers of the temporal sovereign, but of vassal, like the laic princes. The administrative reinforcement of Ottoniens lost its solidity. About 1220, Frederic II ends up giving up the privileges which had conceded to him the Concordat of Worms out of Germanic ground.

See too

Articles of Wikipédia

History of Germany
Fight of priesthood and the Empire

External bonds

Germanic empire and the Church
Henri IV in Canossa
the Berthelot encyclopedia of the XIXe S

Sources

Various articles of Encyclopedia Universalis, DVD, 2007.
Michel Balard, Jean-Philippe Broom, Michel Rouche, Of the Barbarians to the Rebirth , Hatchet, 1973
Jean Chélini, religious History of the medieval Occident , Hatchet, 1991.
Under the direction of J. - M. Mayeur, Charles and Luce Pietri, Andre Vauchez, Mr. Venard, History of Christianity , Desclée, 1991-2001
Francis Rapp, Germanic Roman Holy roman Empire, of Othon the Large one with Charles Quint , Not History, Threshold, 2003

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